Family
by EsTeLweNadia
Summary: Anime/manga verse. Because, Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, for all his talents, skills and genius, had yet to realize that family does not necessarily have to be bound by flesh and blood.


**Title**: Family

**By**: EsTeLweNadia

**Summary**: Anime/manga verse. Because, Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, for all his talents, skills and genius, had yet to realize that family does not necessarily have to be bound by flesh and blood.

**Genre**: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Friendship, Family

**Disclaimer**: Fullmetal Alchemist does NOT belong to me.

**Author****'****s****Note**: Read too much of Fullmetal Alchemist's Hurt/Comfort/Angst fanfiction centering mostly on Edward Elric, who is obviously, my very favorite, so I feel obligated to churn out one of my own. This is my very first Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction. I hope I am on the right track.

This story has not been beta-ed. So all mistakes are mine and mine alone, with deepest apologies.

As always, comments and constructive criticism are immensely appreciated.

Hope you will enjoy the story.

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><p>It was so easy to be fooled by Edward Elric's constant façade; it was so very adult that even the adults constantly forgot that they were actually dealing with a fifteen year-old <em>child<em>, with a very, very _dark_ past, but a child, nonetheless.

And Edward himself, was too engrossed in his keeping up the mask, even he forgot that he was still a kid.

So it took him completely by surprise when mindless horror and panic simply robbed his ability to think and act accordingly, the moment he thought that was going to die, killed by a maniac of a butcher in a freezing moving storage. Only one train of thought persisted; _kill __or __be __killed_. And he was sickened to his stomach to realize that he was willing to be a murderer to save his own hide.

If Al hadn't interfered in time, hadn't stopped him in time…

Edward fought the urge to throw up.

_Suck it up, Edward. You broke down and cried like a little girl in front of everybody. Do you intend to remind everyone how weak you are?_

Not. Edward wasn't weak. If he was, he wouldn't have attempted to revive his mother. If he was, he would just let his brother disappear into the gate. If he was, he would be crying and screaming from the loss of his limbs. If he was, he wouldn't have insisted on having automail surgery, to be a State Alchemist.

No, Edward knew he wasn't weak. He was just very stupid.

And no, it wasn't that he was an idiot. He was actually pretty damn clever. Too clever for his own good. A genius, in fact.

Wasn't it funny that someone so intelligent was capable of making a very stupid mistake?

It wasn't funny, because that genius was only a child back then, driven by a need so intense, to see his mother's smile again, that he didn't give a hoot on why human transmutation was forbidden.

But he wasn't a child now. Now, he was determined to make up for his sins, to return his little brother back to his rightful, _human_ body, and that was only that mattered.

That was why he couldn't afford to be treated like a child, to be weak. For the sake of achieving his goal and for Al, he had to be strong.

Even though sometimes it was only a pretense.

"You are late, Fullmetal," Colonel Mustang regarded him coolly. "What's wrong? Legs so short they can't cover a distance quickly enough?"

Somehow, the word '_short_' and its various synonyms always cast a red haze over his vision. Before he knew it, his temper flared. "Who do you called so short that you need a magnifying glass to see?" Abruptly he bit off his rant and threw a file he had been carrying onto the smug Colonel's desk. He tried and failed to keep the anger from his voice, though. "Here is your fucking report, you fucking bastard. May I _please_ take my leave now?"

"Hold up, Edward."

It wasn't so much of the colonel stopping him; it was more of how he used 'Edward' instead of the title affixed to the name. Frowning in displeasure but still unwilling to let go of his anger, he looked over his shoulder and snarled, "_What_?"

A slight hesitation. "Are you really alright?"

Edward froze. What was Roy getting at? What game was he playing? Was the question some sort of a test?

Then he realized that it didn't matter. Suddenly he felt very tired. Turning his back to the Colonel, he replied softly, bitterly. "I'm always alright, Colonel. I cannot _not_ be alright."

With that, Edward left, shutting the door silently behind him, leaving the Flame Alchemist stunned behind his desk.

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><p>It was raining again.<p>

Somehow, every time he was on his own, the sky would open up and shed it tears. And Edward would be sitting amidst the relentless rain, legs drawn up to his chest, arms locked around both appendages, chin resting on his knees. Drenched to the bone he was, he didn't move away from his spot. Maybe, just maybe, if it rained hard enough, maybe it would wash his sins away.

The sin of killing Majhal even in his self-defense.

The sin of not being able to save sweet little Nina.

The sin of almost sacrificing humans just so he could save his brother from Lust's malicious intent.

And the greatest sin of all; reducing his sweet little brother into a bulky suit of empty armor.

Edward buried his head deeper in his arms, ignoring the minute shivers that wrecked his profile. It was all his fault. His fault that Nina was killed in the most tragic way, his fault that Al was now trapped in a steel body. His fault that he was weak and pathetic, a letdown, a failure, a disappointment, a burden.

_I'm so sorry…_

"_Trust huh? You're telling me to trust what with this hollow body? In alchemy, they say that a human body is made up of flesh, mind and the soul. But was there ever a person that proved that in an experiment? If you think about it logically, a 'memory' is just a piece of 'information'. So it ought to be possible to artificially create one! Nii-san, you said there was something you were too scared to tell me before, right? Could that have been something like my soul and memories are totally fake? Nii-san, how do you prove that a person named Alphonse Elric really existed? Right… isn't it possible that Winry, Granny and everybody else were fooling me? Well, is it, Nii-san?"_

_I'm so sorry, Al…_

Edward trembled harder, but his tears refused to fall. He won't let them fall. But inside, he was falling. Falling, falling, and there was nothing to stop his fall.

Something settled gently around his quaking shoulders, startling him out of his misery, and it took him a second to realize that the rain was only pelting outside of a small radius he was sitting on, no longer dripping ceaselessly on him. When a warm hand tenderly landed on his flesh shoulder, Ed turned around.

It was Roy Mustang, carrying an umbrella over them. And there was this look on his face… that was akin to sorrow.

"Colonel?" Ed stuttered, dismayed to find out how cold he was, and that he wasn't able to hide it from the Colonel.

"Edward," Roy returned softly. "Come on home. The others are worried about you."

Edward turned away; clutching what he belatedly realized was the Colonel's jacket tighter around himself. "I'm sorry. I'm not yet ready to go home. Leave me alone, Mustang."

"No," came the flat answer. Edward looked at the Flame Alchemist incredulously.

"I came here to bring you back, and I won't return without you," Mustang said firmly. "When you became the State Alchemist, you are also a dog of a military, a part of the military, and there is one thing you should know about the military; _No __one __is __left __behind_. Because when you are part of the military, you are also part of the _family_. Family won't abandon each other. You, of all people, should be very familiar with that."

"Family," Ed intoned dully.

Roy affirmed it with a nod. "Yes, family. You are never alone in your pain. You are never alone. Maybe we cannot take your pain away, but we can share it, and stick by you until you have accomplished what you have set out to do. You may not want us to help, but we will be there for you whether you like it or not."

As Ed mulled this over, Roy held out a hand to him. "Are you ready to go home now? Everyone's waiting for your return."

Edward's gaze strayed past his superior officer, and settled on a group of people huddled in raincoats and umbrellas and standing across the street, waving cheerily at him.

Alex Louis Armstrong. Maes Hughes. Denny Brosh. Maria Ross. Jean Havoc. Kain Fuery. Heymans Breda. Vato Falman. And encompassing them all, was a glinting suit of armor. Alphonse Elric, his little brother.

Edward allowed Roy to pull him to his feet, and couldn't help a smile from blossoming on his face. Without warning, he whirled around and threw Roy's jacket at its owner's face.

"You little…!"

"I am _not_ little, you old bastard! And I don't need your stinking jacket!" Edward roared, but he was smiling. Before Roy could frame a hot retort, the Fullmetal Alchemist had already leaped away and was running across the street like a streak of red, black and golden bullet.

"He is still a kid," Riza Hawkeye commented, falling in step beside Roy and watching in amusement as Hughes ruffled Edward's hair ruthlessly, earning an indignant squawk and furious curses as the boy tried to smooth his messy, wet crown while the others merrily laughed at him. "We forget sometimes."

"_He_ forgets, sometimes," Roy corrected, slinging his jacket over his shoulder. He made his way to the group, with Riza matching his pace stride by stride. "It's hard for us to forget that he's a kid, not with that size and that attitude."

Not far ahead, Edward began to sneeze, his brow twitching in mild annoyance when Maria put a slender hand to his forehead.

"It seems that you have a fever," she admonished sternly. "That's what you get from sulking in the rain like that."

Predictably, Edward exploded in a temper. "I don't have a fever and I did not sulk!"

Roy glanced smugly at his female subordinate, who in turn, rolled her eyes. "See what I mean?"

Both of them had gotten close enough to hear Edward retort, "A certain bastard is probably talking about me."

"Oh, and who might he be?" Roy intercepted pleasantly, in a voice of cheerful steel. "I cannot possibly recall anyone who has nothing better to do except to be going around gossiping about a certain shrimp."

Alphonse had to restrain his older brother from launching himself at the smirking Colonel while he screamed, "That is because you are _old_ and that shrimp you are implying is _not_ a shrimp!"

Havoc covered his face with one hand and groaned. "Looks like the _kids_ are at it again… seriously, when will they ever grow up?"

He couldn't help but sweatdropped when both the Flame and the Fullmetal Alchemist rounded on him and hollered, "Who are you calling '_kids_'?"

The rest of the group dissolved into helpless laughter. Too caught up in the antics of their superior officer and his youngest subordinate, they failed to realize that it had finally stopped raining.

Later, when no one was looking, Edward turned those soulful golden eyes at Roy and mouthed a heartfelt "_Thank __you_."

To which Roy acknowledged with a slight nod.

"Idiot," he muttered affectionately.

Because, Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, for all his talents, skills and genius, had yet to realize that family does not necessarily have to be bound by flesh and blood.

– The End –

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><p>Alright, done. I hope the characters aren't too out of character.<p>

Thank you for reading. ^^


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